


waiting for sunrise

by daughterofthesky



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Amnesia, Dark, Darkness, Dreams vs. Reality, Hallucinations, Identity Issues, Illusions, Imaginary Friends, Late Night Conversations, Late at Night, Loneliness, Loss of Identity, M/M, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, One Shot, Random & Short, Random Encounters, Running, Running Away, Short One Shot, Social Anxiety, Social Issues, Temporary Amnesia, free interpretation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-15 15:19:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16065869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daughterofthesky/pseuds/daughterofthesky
Summary: Seungmin doesn't know why he is running alone in the middle of the dawn but he doesn't want to stop. Is someone chasing him, or is he chasing someone?"If I look back, will I see you?""I don't know.""I don't want to keep running away.""Then don't."





	waiting for sunrise

**Author's Note:**

> heyy!! okay so this is a one shot i wrote at 3 am, it's entirely spontaneous and random and i don't think it makes much sense LOL but anyways i hope you like it !!  
> reminder that english is not my first language  
> the name of this au comes from [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1ork-rj8Wc)

Seungmin runs.

If he could remember why he started running in the first place, he would have stopped. He is breathless, his heart hammers in his chest, his muscles ache and his limbs hurt, his mouth is dry and he is sweating, drops sliding down his forehead. His clothes and hair, slick with perspiration, cling to his skin. His hands are clammy, greasy; he hates it. The sun is rising on the horizon, peeking out from behind the far hills, staining the sky with a yellow-orange color, sending the stars to sleep. The birds are chirping and, for a moment, he feels dizzy, like the world is swirling around him. His vision becomes blurry, hazy.  
But Seungmin can't remember why he started running, so he won't stop. He is unable to reconstruct his memory, and he fails to form a clear image of what he is doing, and why he is doing it. He doesn't feel like he is being chased, but as if he is chasing something, someone. _Why? Who?_ What is he doing running along an empty street in the middle of the dawn? He pauses, his legs shaking, almost giving in and falling to his knees but he stands still, breathing uneasily, short quick puffs of air coming in and out of his mouth in desperate need to calm his heart rate and his uncontrolled sweating. He grabs his shirt in a violent fist, his lungs aching, begging for more air. His mind is racing, trying to connect dots that don't seem to match.  
What is he after? Is he running away? How can't he remember why he was running away? What is going on with him?

Seungmin wasn't the athletic type. He wasn't the typical gym guy who spent his afternoons lifting weights and jogging around his neighborhood. He loved books with a passion and staying indoors and exceeding himself in school with high grades and impeccable performances. He didn't play any kind of sports—except chess but it wasn't really a sport, more like a game he was used to winning every single time and that he had grown tired of—, he was the guy on the bleachers. He was lost in his own mind most of the time, his own _world_ , because people around him rarely acknowledged his presence—his existence, even. But he was used to it, and he didn't mind being invisible. He even came to like being wiped away from society, because people had no high expectations for him, he had no fake friendships, no pretending. He was wholeheartedly himself. He liked that, he was somewhat proud of that insignificant fact, and the contrast between him and the rest of the teenagers his age was that they lacked pride in themselves, which he couldn't relate to.  
He was labelled a freak by everyone who ever came in contact with him because he liked his space, his own rules; his mind was way too advanced to engage with typical teenagers who felt like the world was conspiring against them. The world did _not_ revolve around them, so why were they so self-centered and selfish and cruel? Teenagers did nothing but protect themselves and create fake cliques with people who seemed like a threat to them, and he was pleased he didn't belong in any of it. This is why he had no friends.  
The problem he only ever faced was loneliness. Incurable and undying loneliness. He felt lonely and solitude was a recurring character in his book of life. He couldn't understand why there weren't people like him, why he was so different from the rest: everyone was somehow afraid of him, or too disgusted and repulsed to even engage in a conversation with him. And it hurt him.  
The loneliness was the beginning of his hallucinations. He had began to see things were they shouldn't be, things that didn't belong, things that disrupted his reality, his way of thinking, his mind. He was going insane, he was a maniac; he surely felt like one. He didn't think much of them though, as they weren't as frequent as to be too concerned about them. He was healthy, living in his own bubble.

He sits down on the sidewalk, crossing his legs and feeling his temperature fall, his heart rate returning to normal. He wipes the sweat away with his sleeve and takes deep breaths, calming himself down. Something in the air smells funny, like he has been in this situation before. He closes his eyes and tilts his head back, leaning on his arms. He likes the chirping of the birds and the sound of the waves crashing onto the sand in the distance, but he hates the cold wind suffocating the warmth of it all. He waits for something to happen, to reach the epiphany of it all. _What if something led him there?_ Why was he making stuff up? What was he shielding himself from? Had he been harmed before, by something or someone?

He had a therapist when he reached middle school to help him cope with his solitude. Mrs. Yang proposed Seungmin to come up with an imaginary friend, someone who would be entirely fictional and always there when he needed someone to talk to. But Seungmin broke the rules, defying his own mind and creating a mirrored version of a person he used to know—of his childhood best friend. His imaginary friend was the start of his mind making stuff up to shield himself from the reality that hurt him. From the isolation that prevented him from living a reality like everyone else.  
He always used to do this, making stuff up to shield himself from reality. It was a 'self-defense' mechanism and he hated it: it was the one thing he wholly loathed about himself. This defense brought many setbacks, like temporary amnesia and panic attacks and mental breakdowns and momentaneous blindness. His anxiety rushed to the top and overflowed, making his brain a malfunctioning mess. It usually took him days to recover.

He waits to remember something, the reason why he was running aimlessly. He looks around, his eyes gaze at the trees, the sea, the sky, the grass, the street, _reality._ This isn't an illusion. He sighs, relieved.

His imaginary friend was loyal, but weak. When he reached highschool it faded away, and Seungmin hit rock bottom. The isolation was too much to bare. Too cruel. Too naked and raw, too heartbreakingly painful. He promised himself he wouldn't fall deeper into blinding fantasies, that he wouldn't engulf himself in them, that he wouldn't let himself get lost in a fantasy farther than reality.

So he runs, his brown coloured locks whipped back and forth behind him as he darts forward. He has no idea what time it is and he has no clue what day. All he knows is he has to keep running forward. Not stopping for anything. Tears blind him as he turns, running as quickly as his long legs can carry him, bolting down the somber street. The pounding noise of his sneakers resonate off the walls of the empty street with a clanging echo that matches his heart throbbing inside his chest with the thick grief and fear he feels as he runs. Why does it feel like he is in a dream?

But he now sees something, far away from him, scuttling through the dark shade of the whistling trees. It runs away like a piece of the night, like someone has cut carefully around it and peeled him away, leaving only blackness behind. The silhouette stops almost instantly, acknowledging the fact that he is being seen. Seungmin stops as well, gulping, paranoid, an unpleasant fear momentarily paralyzing him. The figure just stands still, and Seungmin can only see its back, as it hides in the shadows of the trees. He guesses it is a man, by his height and short hair, even though he can't be sure.  
"What do you want?" he says, feeling like they are the only ones left in the face of the earth. Like time has stopped and collapsed and there is nothing more than them, right here and right now.  
The figure doesn't say anything, doesn't even turn around and for a moment Seungmin fears he will run away. Then what?  
"Have I been chasing you all this time?" he asks, his voice is firm and determined, unwavering.  
He takes a few steps forward, narrowing the distance between them. The silence of the stranger assures him that there is something wrong: he doesn't know if it's for running or the thought that nobody cared to come after him, but his chest starts to become heavy. He breathes making a hissing sound, and with each breath the pain increases. Seungmin pants, his hand on his knees, violently exhaling the strength he has left. He barely hears the stranger snickering under his breath.  
"Do I know you?" he asks, in between breaths. "Who are you?"  
The stranger doesn't even flicker, but tilts his head down, and Seungmin bets he is smiling to himself, as if he is somehow pleased by his agony. "You know who I am, Seungmin."  
Seungmin frowns, perplexed, feeling like he is in some kind of twisted game and that people are watching his every move, betting he will lose. He doesn't recognize the voice right away but the stranger seems to know who he is, which irritates him. "Are you an illusion?"  
"Maybe I am, maybe I'm not."  
"Who are you?" he repeats. The shadow doesn't answer. His voice echoes down the street. Seungmin fears it will vanish and leave him alone, stranded on an empty street, completely lost.  
"Why are you running?" his voice comes out as a whisper, his mind formulating a thousand questions that want to be answered. _One step at a time_ , he says to himself, _be patient_. "Are you running away from something?"  
"You are asking the wrong question," the stranger replies calmly, as if he enjoys making Seungmin suffer, "The question is, why are _you_ not running away?"

Seungmin thought about running away more times than he had liked to admit to himself. His life was overall good but it lacked excitement. Thrill. Adventure. Risks. Everything was just too easy, too boring and plain. Dull. His bubble could be suffocating, intoxicating. His parents could be so dull and normal and plain that he didn't need them; he bet they wouldn't notice if he was gone. Running away had been tingling in the back of his head for as long as he could remember, but something always pushed him back, held him down. Maybe it had been his mental health. Maybe it had been his unconscious. Maybe he had been too afraid to disrupt his life, maybe he was terrified of the idea of change. Evolution. Moving on. Why did he feel so abandoned on?

When his imaginary friend disappeared, he felt abandoned. He wouldn't speak to anyone in months. Why would he? They would all leave him eventually. He had become convinced nothing was real anymore, and that it would all fade away and vanish and all that would be left would be him, alone. It struck him hard, learning that nothing was meant to stay. He had began to fail distinguishing dreams and hallucinations and illusions from reality. His perception of the world had shifted. His heart had perished.

Seungmin is now almost a foot away from the stranger: he is standing with his hands on his pockets, a hoodie over his hair but Seungmin doesn't fail to recognize him now. His back is still turned on him. He hasn't changed at all.  
"Hyunjin." The name escapes his lips like a curse, like he is too afraid to jinx it. Like he is terrified he will open his eyes and discover that it is not real. And somehow the pieces of the puzzle fit and he is not as insane as he thought he was his whole life. He is uncertain though, that this is really happening, and that the person he thought he lost has returned.

"If I look back, will I see you?" Hyunjin asks, and Seungmin detects fear in his speech. Seungmin feels the urge to comfort him but his words are never as comforting as he wants them to. He doesn't know how to reach out. How to touch him without physically touching him: how to get to him with words.  
"I don't know," he replies, unsure of what he means, unsure of how to reply to such an easy but complex question. Seungmin doesn't know what he wants from him. "Is that what you want to see?"  
Hyunjin hesitates; he doesn't know what he wants. "Yes? I-I mean, I don't know."  
Seungmin doesn't want to be here. He doesn't want to go through this again because he knows for sure he won't come out alive, and if he does, then he'll come out barely breathing, all bruised up and heartbroken. And then, who will glue its pieces back together? He hadn't endured the pain of moving on and waking up and realizing he didn't exist just to run back to him now that he needed him. Why, after all this time, did he come back into his life?  
"What's wrong? Why are you here?" he asks, as if those words don't have spines in them. No pain.  
Hyunjin doesn't take too long to answer, but still lets the question linger in the space between them. Seungmin can hear his breath, and he likes the sound of it: he is not alone anymore. "I don't want to keep running away."  
Those words unleash a thousand different thoughts and his mind is able to pinpoint precisely the reason for his being there. "Then don't," he says, but it sounds more like a plead. "Stay with me." His voice is clear, his tone soft. _Time hasn't gone by at all_ , he thinks, _not really._  
Hyunjin turns around, nothing but sorrow behind red eyes and silent tears. He doesn't look at him, his eyes focused on his feet, hands still in his pockets. Why is he so afraid of facing Seungmin? Maybe it'll remind him of the time they used to spend together, maybe it'll reflect that Seungmin has grown and that his feelings have developed and that he isn't the same as he used to. He breaks down, more silent tears streaming down his face. "I thought I could. I _wanted_ to. But I can't, you know me: I'm weak." Seungmin freezes, his eyes widen, his mouth drops enough for Hyunjin to look back at him now. Seungmin tenses. "How can you love someone who is not real, someone who is just an illusion?"

Seungmin fell in love once, and promised himself he would never fall for anyone else. Love was the biggest problem Seungmin had ever faced, it was an enigma that he couldn't solve. He couldn't tell if that person loved him back, if he reciprocated his feelings. His childhood friend had been his biggest enigma, and he had fallen in love with such a curse, with someone he knew could never belong with him. His parting had broken his heart, and he promised himself he wouldn't fall in love again.

"I love someone who is real," he says, lifting his hand in mid-air, "I love the you that is real and living and far away from me." Hyunjin doesn't reply; he raises his hand and presses it against Seungmin's but it passes right through, his hand blurry and glitching. "You are just a reflection of my love for him."  
Those words hurt Hyunjin, who flinches and draws his hand away. Seungmin is not sure if he meant to hurt him, or if it is just his way of saying he now sees clear, and understands that he never truly stopped loving the real Hyunjin. But he does feel sorry, and regrets how bluntly and tactlessly those words slurred out of him.  
"Hyunj—"  
But he is already turning around and running off before he can finish his name, his silhouette fuzzy and blending in with the shadows and the remaining dark as he makes his way down the street in a rush. And Seungmin is too tired, too exhausted and fatigued, to go after him.

Seungmin runs down the same path Hyunjin took, the same he had been running before the encounter. This time he knows what he is doing and where he is going. He knows he is not following Hyunjin, because he disappeared into the shadows. He is running towards his heart's orientation, towards freedom from his bubble, towards rebellion and adventure and excitement. He will see Hyunjin again, he is sure.

Seungmin runs.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope u liked it !!! (it sucks so im not surprised if you hate it agsfjk)  
> reminder that english is not my first language and that comments/kudos are always appreciated :)  
> you can find me [here](https://curiouscat.me/180325) :)


End file.
